﻿A former colleague of Nancy's passes along this In-The-Trenches tale of statecraft and workers' comp from the mid-1980s:﻿

"I had the honor and privilege as a twenty-something to work alongside Nancy in the mid-1980s. We spent many hours working on reforming state unemployment compensation law and even had the privilege of being invited to her home to assist her over a weekend on a number of documents. Obviously, this thing called the internet did not exist at the time, so it was good, old-fashioned manual data entry that got the job done. The lessons I learned alongside her in those days have carried me along throughout my career.

At the time, I was collecting reams of official data from the U.S. Department of Labor and the Minnesota Department of Economic Security. One of the comparisons created in this process was a data table that took the average weekly unemployment benefit, multiplied by the average duration in weeks of unemployment. This calculation incensed the DFLers, so I could see your mother was putting extra thought into what to call this statistic. With a tilt of her head up, those piercing eyes peering through her glasses, and a small, wicked smile shared between her, myself and Margaret in that narrow office space in her basement, the pronouncement was made: this would be known as “The Misery Index.” I have never forgotten that.”

We all learned so much from working with Nancy....she had the highest standards. It may not always have been learning in the way that we wanted or expected to learn, but it lasted and served us a lifetime. Thank you Nancy!

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friend

4/25/2014 02:25:48 am

Nancy is probably chairing a committee that is reorganizing St. Peter’s intake processes as we speak. ;-)

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friend

5/4/2014 10:18:08 pm

oh the basement! There are tales to tell there!

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Memorials

Memorials may be made to Mayo Clinic, University of Minnesota Rochester; Clearway Minnesota—or any cause of your choosing that needs help. Nancy was here to help; she believed we all are.